Last Transmission

  LAST TRANSMISSION

  Hans Baernhoft

  Praise for Hans Baernhoft’s ‘Metal Rain’ from Amazon readers:

  ★★★★★ Read this book!

  Metal Rain is a very good read. The characters were well thought out, and the book was hard to put down (or turn off) when I should have been doing other things. It’s a Five Star read! Great job, good book!

  ★★★★★ Gripping novel

  This has been a really great read. A very difficult book to put down once started!

  ★★★★★ Brilliant

  Fantastic book excellent read keeps you on the edge till the very last page. Will definitely read future books by this author

  ★★★★★ Like a book that keeps you guessing?

  I like the way this Author writes...I will be looking for more of his books. I love good action and detail

  ★★★★★ Captivating story

  I am not a big reader for pleasure and this book had me seeking out moments to find out what happened next. Great story with unexpected turns. Sad when the ride was over.

  ★★★★★ Dark Rain

  … an excellent book well worth reading, keeps you on the edge of your seat for a lot of the time with a well thought out plot and well-defined characters, I read it at one sitting. I will be on the lookout for more from this author.

  ★★★★★ Good read

  First thing I've read by Mr. Baernhoft, I'm already looking for more and I've still to finish this one. Good characters and story structure.

  ★★★★★ A Very Good Read

  I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I'm not really happy to use descriptions such a 'page turner' or 'couldn't put it down', but this novel was certainly one that made me want to get on a read more and more… really a cracking read.

  ★★★★★ Very Good

  I enjoyed this book very much it was fast paced all the way through… a very good book the detail was meticulous.

  ★★★★★ Excellent!

  A must read. Believable characters in a fast action plot. C'mon Mr Baernhoft, where's your next story because I want to read it!

  ✽✽✽

  This future is real

  At the time of writing the most powerful countries and companies on Earth are gearing-up to return to the Moon. Not for political glory, but for an isotope called Helium-3.

  Helium-3 is the essential element for volume nuclear fusion. Because fusion (as opposed to fission) reaction is non-radioactive, it is seen as the clean energy of the future. The problem is, Helium-3 is almost unknown on Earth.

  The primary source is the Sun, itself a giant fusion reactor. Though our atmosphere prevents it from reaching us, it bombards the Moon where the regolith dust on the surface has been trapping it for billions of years.

  All we need to do is gather it up and bring it home.

  Nor do we need very much. According to Ouyang Ziyaun, the chief scientist of China's lunar exploration program, “each year, three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world.”

  It's all doable: we can get to the Moon, we know how to extract Helium-3, and put it to work. (Only this week a 12-year-old Memphis boy built a working fusion reactor in his spare room!)

  So what's taking so long?

  Going to the Moon is expensive. On the other hand, the upside is huge. A single metric tonne of Helium-3 would be worth an estimated $3 billion, a price that can only rise as fossil fuels start to run out by the middle of the millenium.

  Lunar mining is a reality. It just hasn't happened yet. When it does, prepare for the greatest struggle for wealth and power since the European discovery of America.

  If you enjoy this book, please add your review to the Amazon site. It makes a real difference.

  If you have comments or if you would like advanced information about my next book, please write to me at

  HansBaernhoft@gmail.com.

  Happy reading...

  Copyright © 2019 Hans Baernhoft

  All rights reserved.

  Cursed be the man before Jehovah,

  that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho;

  with the loss of his first-born

  shall he lay the foundation thereof…

  Joshua 6:26

  1. LONG SINCE DEAD

  Mary was on her fours again, head bowed, wrists and knees buried in grey dust. Tears crawled off her eyelashes and splashed into the bowl of her visor. She raised a hand to wipe them away, but her glove banged against the polyurethane screen. Stupid. She wasn’t thinking. She needed to think.

  She lifted her head. The man with the Afrikaans accent was over by the truck. The low sun behind him caused her to squint. Despite his bulky white suit, the glare reduced him to a thin black stick.

  “You know who my father – hic,” she said.

  The shock of his attack had given her the hiccups. She tried to suppress them. The UHF radio betrayed the slightest sound and she wanted to appear strong; strong and in control. It was difficult with the hiccups.

  The stick started to move.

  Mary glanced about. The flat grey wasteland stretched out in every direction. The only sign of life was the domes of the hotel, peering over the horizon to her right. Too far to reach.

  “If it’s money,” she said. “He’ll pay. A million. Ten million. Just tell me what you want.”

  The stick advanced with a slow, loping movement adapted to the one-sixth gravity. “Do you remember the Southern African Wars during the 30s?” he said. The radio delivered his throaty voice to a spot in the center of her brain. “No, you probably don’t. You’re too young. Those were bad times. About as bad as war can get. I fought for nine years on one side or another. I did bad things for money. Not that I remember much. I was drunk most of the time. Or high. Anything to take my mind off the killing. No, you get used to killing. It’s the fear that eats away at you. Just about everyone I knew got shot, blown up or cut to pieces. Every morning I expected the same. But, as you can see, it wasn’t to be. That kind of thing makes you wonder. Why me? Why was I spared? Life and death seemed so random, so meaningless - until I came here.” He stopped walking. “What do you think this is about Mary? Minerals? Land? Power? No. We’ve had our fill of all that bullshit. Up here there’s no politics, no religion, no history. There’s only the future - and you are standing in its way.”

  A new wave of panic gripped Mary’s chest. Cold sweat gathered on her skin. “I don’t know what you’re – hic – talking about.”

  “Yes you do. John Oakley has been feeding you information to take back to your father. Why else would you be out here? You’re a bright girl. You knew the risk.”

  “I wasn’t… I won’t tell anyone.”

  He started forward again. “We can agree on that.”

  She gasped. She pushed down into the regolith. Her body floated upright. The pool of tears in the visor trickled out of sight. For a moment she was on her feet again, in equilibrium. She threw out her arms for balance but miss-timed. She shuffled her right boot back to stop her fall. It scuffed in the dirt. She twisted around, right foot over left, arms whirling. Three long seconds later she was on her knees again, head down, hands in the dust. The tiny pool reappeared in the visor and frustration added to it.

  “You have no idea what you’re doing,” she said. “Oskar Pedersen is my godfather.”

  “Oskar Pedersen eh?” He gave a low chuckle.

  “I’m serious. Whoever you’re working for, works for him.”

  “No one works for him any more. We both know that…”

  Half a dozen tiny explosions erupted from the ground between them, cutting him off. Each one threw up a mushroom of dust which lingered a meter above the ground before slowly descending.

  Mary sprung back. “What the…?”

  The man looked up. “Micrometeorites.”

  “Micro…?”

  “Cosmic dust,” he said. “Tiny particles of space debris. On Earth they burn up in the atmosphere. Out here a grain of sand will blow through you like a bullet. They say the suits will stop it, but I wouldn’t want to put it to the test.”

  Mary examined the sky. It was pitch black. The sun was so strong she couldn’t even see the stars, let alone space dust.

  The man’s helmet tilted back down in her direction. “Are you hit?”

  “What do you care?”

  “It would have saved some time.” He continued towards her.

  “You can’t…” she said. “They’ll know. My boyfriend… I’ll be missed.”

  “I’m sure you will,” he said. “That’s why I want your necklace.”

  She touched a hand to her chest. “My…”

  “I thought we’d leave it in the truck. As a kind of message.”

  “What kind of message?”

  “The kind that says no one else is to blame.”

  He stood over her, his back to the sun. Without any light diffusion the front of his white suit was black. “Listen to me carefully,” he said. “I’m a soldier, not a sadist. Do what I say, and this will be quick and painless. Are you listening? Don’t hold your breath. If you hold your breath when I release your helmet, the vacuum will explode your lungs. And that’s got to hurt. Relax and breathe out. Your body is sixty per cent water. The sudden drop in pressure will turn it all to gas. The gas will force its way out through your mouth and ears and all the little pores in your skin so fast you’ll freeze, instantly. Let me reassure you, there are worse ways to die.”

  Mary wasn’t
reassured. She kicked away from him, sliding on her back along the ground.

  He caught up with her. He trapped her shoulder with his left hand and lowered his left knee onto the rigid armor case around her torso. It held his weight but pinned her to the ground.

  She punched and clawed at his arms, chest and head. It was useless. The helmet was solid. The suit was pressurized and composed of layer upon layer of Kevlar and insulation. If bullets of cosmic dust couldn’t get through, what chance did she have?

  She screamed. The electromagnetic waves carried the piercing whistle straight to his eardrum, causing him to flinch. She noticed and screamed again. But this time it only served to speed him up.

  He reached around her helmet with both hands, searching for the two indented red buttons which, when pressed simultaneously, detached it.

  Mary twisted her head left and right but the helmet was attached to the rigid collar of the suit and barely moved. She bucked her hips and continued her furious pummeling of his head and shoulders. It made no difference. She drew breath to scream again but her throat was raw, and it ended in a harsh cough.

  He leaned in. His helmet knocked against hers. The gold patina on his visor created a convex mirror in which she could see herself flailing helplessly.

  Suddenly he stopped. He arched up, yelping in pain. He staggered to his feet. He reached around and clawed at his back in agony.

  Mary scanned the sky. Adrenalin focused her mind. She rolled onto her side and rose to her feet. The man was between her and the truck. He was in torment but far from incapacitated. If the micrometeorites hadn’t punctured his suit, he would probably recover. She turned and fled in the opposite direction.

  Running in low gravity had landed her on her face more than once so she tried something different: she hopped. It was clumsy and required all her concentration but at least she stayed upright. She was going downhill. As her confidence and balance improved, she started to stride; one long step after another. She found she covered more distance if she slowed down and allowed gravity to do the work. Soon she was making three yards between footfalls.

  The growing distance from the man didn’t diminish the noise of his pain. It followed her until the radio connection broke.

  The abrupt silence caused her to turn mid-stride. She lost her balance and piled, head first, into the dust. She recovered and looked back up the slope. The curve of the ground now hid the man and all but the roof of the truck. She held her breath. All she could hear was the whoosh of the oxygen pump at the back of her helmet. At least her hiccups had stopped.

  She dropped her gaze to a small green light at the lower edge of her vision. She focused on it for three seconds. A two-dimensional relief map appeared in the lower half of her visor. Floating above it were red and green markers. Red for buildings and green for landscape features, along with their distance in meters. From the West (her right) were HOTEL (1272), SPACEPORT (1611), FARMS (1353), ISRU (567) and, to the extreme East, MINES (1930). None of them could be seen from where she stood.

  The green markers were very much further. The three nearest craters were the SVENDRUP, DE GERLACHE and HAWORTH, also hidden by the slope. The only visible landscape feature was the MALAPERT MOUNTAINS, thirteen kilometers away. The curve of the planet meant they were wholly in darkness except for the three jagged peaks – the so-called 'peaks of eternal light' – hovering crystal clear in the airless void.

  The tip of the sun peered over the ridge above her. It created long fingers of shadow from the smallest of rocks and undulations. They reached down the slope and merged, some hundred yards below, into a solid black lake that stretched away to an unseen horizon under an empty black sky.

  This void, the navigator indicated, was the SHACKLETON CRATER. Its center was 10.5 kilometers away and 4.2 kilometers deep. The hotel and the other buildings behind Mary were tiny specks on its broad rim. To go any further down would be pointless and fatal. Climbing back up was almost as perilous. To get to the hotel she would have to trek across open ground. The man would easily spot her.

  Her only other choice was the curiously named ‘ISRU’. According to the navigator it was a building half a kilometer east, at the very edge of the crater rim.

  She set off. It was slow going. Billions of years of meteorites had left the surface pocked and rocky. In the shadows, the water in the regolith had frozen. The ground there was hard and she soon slipped. She fell on her front and slid feet first down the slope. By digging in her toes and fingers she came to a stop after ten yards. She paused for breath, but only briefly. In the shadow the ground was so cold she felt it even through the layers of thermal insulation. She rose to her hands and knees and crawled back up.

  The light from her helmet torch lit the way. At the place where she had fallen, she found her hotel passcard. She checked the transparent breast pocket that had held it. It was ripped. She sighed with relief. The passcard was the only way to enter any of the buildings. Loosing it would have been a death sentence. She would have been locked outside until her oxygen failed. She gripped it in her gloved fist and continued heading east.

  The journey along the treacherous slope was harder than she had imagined. After ten more minutes she was exhausted. The ISRU was still nowhere in sight.

  A figure appeared at the top of the ridge.

  She stopped and stared up. The figure wore the same standard white surface suit and helmet as she had seen on everyone else. It crossed hands above its head and waived.

  “Who are you?” she said. There was no sound in her headset despite the line of sight. She made a show of tapping the side of her helmet. “Turn on your radio.”

  No answer. Was it possible for a new person to patch into her radio? She didn't know. The figure beckoned her up. If this were the South African, then she would never get rid of him. He could simply follow her along the ridge until she ran out of oxygen or tired and slipped into the icy darkness of the crater. She had to climb up at some point. It might as well be now.

  “I promise you…” she said. “If it’s you, I’ll…” She didn’t actually know what she would do.

  The slope had become steeper than she had realized. Climbing back up was hard, particularly in the cumbersome suit. She made it easier by tacking to the left and right. The figure waited. Mary looked for the truck but couldn’t see it.

  Eventually she emerged at a point level with the figure but ten yards out of reach. The reflective screen concealed the person’s face. The figure beckoned her over. Why didn’t it come to her?

  She tapped the ear of her helmet again and pointed to him. “Turn your radio on.” She wasn’t getting through. The figure had a window breast pocket, like hers, containing the passcard of the person inside the suit. It was too far to see the detail. She needed to be closer. She hesitated. The figure understood and took the initiative. It walked toward her, with a limp.

  She turned away. The man sprung forward. His helmet hit her shoulder. His hands reached around her waist, causing her to fall. She toppled down the slope taking him with her.

  Locked together they rolled head-over-heals, over and over. Black sky merged with grey regolith. At some point he let go and she tumbled on alone. She bumped and slid over the rocky ground. She landed upside down on her back and skidded to a halt.

  The helmet and suit had protected her from the worst, but she felt battered. Her body was aching. She looked up. She was out of sight of the sun, below the surface of the black lake. The ground was frozen solid. The cold was already starting to seep through the insulation of her suit, but she was too exhausted to do anything about it. In a way, it was comforting.

  She looked for the Earth but all she could see was sky and - for the first time - the stars. A glittering ocean of stars that filled her field of vision. So clear and beautiful. It reminded her of when she was a little girl, naming the constellations with her father on hot summer nights, trying to comprehend how extremely long it took for the light from those distant suns to reach her eyes, and finally understanding that by the time it did, most or maybe all of them were already, long since, dead.